Living in Western Australia is like attending a glorious Victorian tea party in the middle of the desert. Your hair must be styled, your pinky must be aloft, and you probably received an engraved invitation just to walk next door, but to deal with the savage surroundings you might be wearing workboots, mosquito netting, very gauzy clothing and not able to move for the three hours surrounding midday due to the heat. Oh, and don't forget to hang some raw kangaroo meat from a nearby tree to keep the snakes/spiders/dingos away from your nice tablecloths and bone china, and remember to subjugate a few natives to grow your tea and sugar for you. It really is a strange mix of high Continental machinations and rough-n-ready determination to survive. I blame the British.
Though everyone I've met so far has been a law abiding citizen, (the lying, sniveling, petty theif who stole my wallet excepted) the convict culture of Australia's beginnings are not that far removed from the national consciousness. **Nerd Alert! I have yet to tour the Fremantle Prison, but REALLY want to because it's allowed! It was one of the last operating convict outposts in the country, having closed only a couple of decades ago, and it's a block away from where we attend church.** It seems as though instead of creating a counter-culture where the wrongs those first Westerners committed were "rights" and the law was chaos, the Australians have recreated a strict English society and bent time and space to make the inhospitable hospitable, using the wit and grit that got them convicted in the first place. Google "Ned Kelly" and you'll see what I mean. I have a lot of respect for the people here, but boy are they a bag of contradictions.
For instance, there are still night clubs in Western Australia that conform to a strict dress code in the evenings--no thongs (flip-flops for US readers; don't panic), no singlets ("wife-beater tshirts" for Alabamian readers; panic) and no shorts on men. These same places, however, before that magic hour of 6pm, allow barefooted customers. As do banks, grocery stores, gas stations, etc. This is a developed country where it is still acceptable to walk around with no shoes--on the up side, it's still pretty safe to walk around without shoes because the place is SO clean. Dichotomy. The reason the place is so pristine leads me contradiction number two: everything closes at 5pm. EVERYTHING. You decide at 7:22pm that you want to bake a cake and then discover you don't have any eggs? Too bad! No cake for you! (Unless you find that rare IGA that's open until 9 OR if it's Thursday and it's late-night-shopping....which again means 9pm.) I find that both endearing and frustrating; like living in Mayberry on Mars.
I guess like anywhere on earth there are trade-offs here: no Downy Balls, but you can still by powdered fabric starch for ironing; no Double-Acting baking powder or cornmeal of ANY kind, but carrots the size of your forearm, sweet potatoes the size of your torso, and better coffee than if Starbucks fell asleep and dreamed you a cup. No sparrows, but flocks of parrots. No mountains and little rain, but beaches to die for. No shopping or eating or respectable entertainments after 9pm, but all conveniences and daid entertainments are centrally located--they have grocery stores inside shopping malls! And police stations, and libraries, and post offices (Oh, but the post offices do not pick up at your home, they only deliver. In order to mail anything you must take it to a designated location. Seriously.) and beauty salons and homeware and hardware stores all peacefully co-exist under one huge roof! You just have to be out from under that roof before the sun goes down.
And I couldn't leave off talking of Western Australia, abbreviated WA, which the locals half-jokingly say means "Wait Awhile," without discussing the place names that have made me giggle since I got here. There are the Indiginous ones (from Aboriginal words) like Nangebup, (NAN-jee-bup), Wattleup, Warnbro, Toodyay, Wooroloo, Gidgegannup, Mundijong, and the twin gold-mining towns of Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie. Then there are the street names around here--here being Rockingham (slang term and local tavern called the Swinging Pig...get it?) that sound like English words have been put in a blender: Armadale, Brindabella, Properjohn, Meckering, Orelia, Parmelia, Calista, Medina, Kwinana--it's a feast for the ears.
So, in honor of not having another post like the last one (pure self-pity) and in celebrating some of the differences and wonders and fortitude I find in the people and places here, I am providing a link to a song from an immigrant. Superhusband introduced me to this song which was popular here in the 80's, but was written by an Italian-American born in Ohio who had lived in Australia for many years. I think it about sums up my attitude; this IS "a nice-a place" and I am blessed to get to live in it for a while. I will now shaddup my face.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFacWGBJ_cs
Sunday 25 March 2012
Sunday 18 March 2012
Pass the salt, please Dear.
Good morning readers. Sorry it's been a while since the last one--but I'm about to tell you why.
I'll explain my last week of communication by relating one of my favorite situational jokes (hint: this is really fun at parties EVEN if people have heard it before.) It goes like this; you wait for someone to mention a Freudian slip--and these days you'll wait a long time, probably through several complete parties, unless you're in a graduate program studying English literature. But when someone does, you get to say:
"Oh, a Freudian slip? I had one of those the other day. My wife (or husband/partner, etc.) and I were eating breakfast, and what I meant to say was 'Pass the salt, please Dear.' but what I actually said was 'You ruined my life you selfish, ignorant slut.' Uncanny."
Sooooooo.....you can imagine what this week's been like. Not all of it, of course, and my husband and I aren't deeply embittered toward one another (PROMISE! We are often silly and cuddly and real troupers, but we're not the hold-everything-in types. No ulcers here, folks.) But it just so happens that our regular, everyday communication turns into a mine-field of near-comical proportions because we're so tense about our situation. Imagine if you and your spouse were:
But we are Christians, so we know that comfort is there; we know care is there from the ultimate Caregiver. We are now challenged to see what we're being taught and how we should proceed: whether overcoming stagnancy and getting involved in this community despite never knowing how long that involvement can last, or really digging into our faith and finding out what it means to "Be still and know"--a feat at which I've never been good. I've been reading Exodus a lot.
So if you are of faith, pray for us. Pray we understand. Pray we clear out the mines of our speech so we don't blow-off each other's proverbial legs. Pray that humor, and mutual submission, and grace, and mercy, and honest banking practices reign. And please be careful if you want to ask your spouse to pass the salt.
I'll explain my last week of communication by relating one of my favorite situational jokes (hint: this is really fun at parties EVEN if people have heard it before.) It goes like this; you wait for someone to mention a Freudian slip--and these days you'll wait a long time, probably through several complete parties, unless you're in a graduate program studying English literature. But when someone does, you get to say:
"Oh, a Freudian slip? I had one of those the other day. My wife (or husband/partner, etc.) and I were eating breakfast, and what I meant to say was 'Pass the salt, please Dear.' but what I actually said was 'You ruined my life you selfish, ignorant slut.' Uncanny."
Sooooooo.....you can imagine what this week's been like. Not all of it, of course, and my husband and I aren't deeply embittered toward one another (PROMISE! We are often silly and cuddly and real troupers, but we're not the hold-everything-in types. No ulcers here, folks.) But it just so happens that our regular, everyday communication turns into a mine-field of near-comical proportions because we're so tense about our situation. Imagine if you and your spouse were:
- Married for four months and living on your second continent, in your third time zone, in your fourth accomodation, in your seventh location.
- Both unable to work
- Could be called to the other side of said second continent at a moments notice in order for a stranger to charge you a billion dollars to evaluate your relationship
- Confined to an indoor space of approx 7'x4' and an outdoor space which is under constant scrutiny by your almost-constantly inebriated neighbors. (For real. Side note: The other day Super-husband and I were putting up our new tarp/porch with tent poles, and a guy walked by staring intensely. He said "You two are keen" (meaning determined in Aussie), then he added "I'd be helping if I hadn't already had seven beers tonight." Seriously? Seriously.)
- Had no airconditioning in a summer that was Australia's fourth hottest on record. BTW, Australia is hot in non-record-claiming summers.
- I logged into my credit card account and found that I could change bank accounts to make payments, but only to American banks, even though the company is international. We couldn't even use Super-husband's Visa travel money card, conveniently loaded with US dollars. Nope. Had to go further.
- I called the company to see if they accepted ANY other form of payment; they said Western Union or money gram or a US Bank.
- We then had to figure out how to wire money into my US bank, which is actually not a bank, but a credit union
- Logged into my credit union to find out how to wire money, and discovered that I wasn't allowed into internet banking like I thought. Had to call a supposed 24-hour banking line. It told me to call back during business hours.
- I stayed up til midnight then got up at 6am to talk to a bank in Florence, AL. We got info, logged in, gave information to husband to input into HIS online banking function
- Found out that his online banking function did not allow him to transfer enough money at once to cover the bill. But it SHOULD have.
- Called HIS bank on an actual 24-hour line. Talked to a useless liar.
- Attempted to transfer a small amount of money to see if it worked.
- Got online with my credit union after two days and found that money had gotten through, but was mysteriously $25 less than when he sent it.
- Got up again at 6am to call Florence. Money made it. Mysterious fee not explained. Emailed a receipt showing only the lessened amount.
- FUMED that a middle-man bank, who was never ever named, could take out whatever fee they chose at any time, and would not disclose this information before the customer agreed to send the money. So with flat fees (not sliding or percentage) $124 Australian dollars had turned into $60 US. Just like that.
- Went into his bank (it's now Tuesday and we started this Friday night) to speak to a real, non-useless, non-liar person to find out how to send MORE money in a lump sum. Found out that I needed more information from MY credit union
- Stayed up late again, called Florence. The credit union does NOT have the number his bank needs, gives me two routing numbers
- Took said routing numbers back to his bank, confused the non-liar. Used the original numbers and prayed for the best
- Money went through a week and three days after we began the process.
- Logged in to pay bill, account status wasn't updated so I couldn't pay the whole thing
- Waited another week.
- Logged in TODAY to pay off the bill.
But we are Christians, so we know that comfort is there; we know care is there from the ultimate Caregiver. We are now challenged to see what we're being taught and how we should proceed: whether overcoming stagnancy and getting involved in this community despite never knowing how long that involvement can last, or really digging into our faith and finding out what it means to "Be still and know"--a feat at which I've never been good. I've been reading Exodus a lot.
So if you are of faith, pray for us. Pray we understand. Pray we clear out the mines of our speech so we don't blow-off each other's proverbial legs. Pray that humor, and mutual submission, and grace, and mercy, and honest banking practices reign. And please be careful if you want to ask your spouse to pass the salt.
Tuesday 13 March 2012
The Nemesis Theory
Hello from a much cooler caravan than last week, both in degrees and demeanor. My lovely husband made us a tarp-based front porch and added shadecloth. It's like a three-room apartment now! But I digress.
Round about summer of 2006 I moved from Florence, AL to Huntsville, AL and had the privilege to be reaquainted with my friend Emily who grew up there. In one of our far-ranging, ridiculously animated and gesticulated, highly treasured conversations, she brought to me the theory that creating your own Arch Nemesis was a healthy and entertaining endeavor. I have henceforth agreed, and being so excited about it, spread this theory to others. I by no means want to take credit--I don't even know if the theory originated with her--but I thought I would here disseminate it further in hopes of bringing joy to the masses (and by masses, I mean the three of you reading this. I love all three of you.)
Here are the rules:
1) Your Arch Nemesis must be a real person living on Earth right now. In come cases they could be an entity, such as "The United States Postal Service," but the results are generally more poignant if it's an individual.
2) You must choose someone who you would likely never meet in person, nor have a need to try to contact at any time. (We all have enough awkwardness in our lives, why pile it on?)
3) This is my personal addition: The individual must have a name that sounds good when shouted aloud while shaking your fist at the sky. Melodramatic? Yes. Theraputic? You better believe it.
Now that you know how to choose an Arch Nemesis for yourself and you can see how entertaining it is, I'll tell you why it's healthy. Firstly, draw to your recollection the characters we read/watch who have Arch Nemeses and you'll come to this conclusion--they're the IMPORTANT ones. Batman, Superman, Jim Halpert, Sheldon Cooper, Cinderella, etc, etc. Ergo, if you have an Arch Nemesis, even a self-named one, you are as important as these superheroes and your life and works are just as worthy of being "foiled" and/or "thwarted."
Secondly, if you're like most people, there are annoying, terrible, heinous, laughable misfortunes that buzz about you during the day for which you can blame NO ONE. The dryer ate another sock, the ants found your clothes AGAIN, the grocery store is out of that one thing you needed to fix dinner, the short-cut to work you just found out about last week is now up for resurfacing....you know the things. Well, with the addition of an Arch Nemesis, you CAN blame someone. Some one real, living, who finds your life so important and righteous that it must be stopped. You can rant at them. Rail even. Act irrationally in the comfort of your own home, car, laundry room, and know that no one in your immediate family will reap the aftermath. Thus, the kick-the-cat syndrome becomes blame-the-nemesis. It's freeing and lovely and saves your children and spouse from a lot of bitterness.
If you're still wary about choosing an Arch Nemesis, I'll give you a couple of examples to get your creative juices flowing. My Arch Nemesis is Mardelle Atchison, the wife of the one-time Mayor of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. At the time I was choosing, "Canada" was a great punch-line to many jokes for us silly Americans, so it seemed a natural choice for first broad search. I came upon a list of dignitaries in Canada, and from there, narrowed it down to "people living in towns with funny names" and then to "people living in towns with funny names who themselves have funny names." Mardelle is great to shout aloud and shake a fist at, by the way. Conversely, my friend Bubba (because everyone in Alabama knows someone named Bubba) used the "entity" clause and named the entire state of Rhode Island as his nemesis. Clever, brilliant, hilarious. Another friend, I'm sorry to say that I forget who, named I believe the Czech Minister of Healthy Eating as theirs. This shows particular genius as it's a rather obscure office and area, with the added bonus of getting to fight back at said Nemesis by eating something UN-healthy. You can see why I like my friends so much.
So that's it. I would love to hear of your Nemeses, if and when you choose to appoint them. We will band together in mocking scorn and shake our fists at the sky.
Round about summer of 2006 I moved from Florence, AL to Huntsville, AL and had the privilege to be reaquainted with my friend Emily who grew up there. In one of our far-ranging, ridiculously animated and gesticulated, highly treasured conversations, she brought to me the theory that creating your own Arch Nemesis was a healthy and entertaining endeavor. I have henceforth agreed, and being so excited about it, spread this theory to others. I by no means want to take credit--I don't even know if the theory originated with her--but I thought I would here disseminate it further in hopes of bringing joy to the masses (and by masses, I mean the three of you reading this. I love all three of you.)
Here are the rules:
1) Your Arch Nemesis must be a real person living on Earth right now. In come cases they could be an entity, such as "The United States Postal Service," but the results are generally more poignant if it's an individual.
2) You must choose someone who you would likely never meet in person, nor have a need to try to contact at any time. (We all have enough awkwardness in our lives, why pile it on?)
3) This is my personal addition: The individual must have a name that sounds good when shouted aloud while shaking your fist at the sky. Melodramatic? Yes. Theraputic? You better believe it.
Now that you know how to choose an Arch Nemesis for yourself and you can see how entertaining it is, I'll tell you why it's healthy. Firstly, draw to your recollection the characters we read/watch who have Arch Nemeses and you'll come to this conclusion--they're the IMPORTANT ones. Batman, Superman, Jim Halpert, Sheldon Cooper, Cinderella, etc, etc. Ergo, if you have an Arch Nemesis, even a self-named one, you are as important as these superheroes and your life and works are just as worthy of being "foiled" and/or "thwarted."
Secondly, if you're like most people, there are annoying, terrible, heinous, laughable misfortunes that buzz about you during the day for which you can blame NO ONE. The dryer ate another sock, the ants found your clothes AGAIN, the grocery store is out of that one thing you needed to fix dinner, the short-cut to work you just found out about last week is now up for resurfacing....you know the things. Well, with the addition of an Arch Nemesis, you CAN blame someone. Some one real, living, who finds your life so important and righteous that it must be stopped. You can rant at them. Rail even. Act irrationally in the comfort of your own home, car, laundry room, and know that no one in your immediate family will reap the aftermath. Thus, the kick-the-cat syndrome becomes blame-the-nemesis. It's freeing and lovely and saves your children and spouse from a lot of bitterness.
If you're still wary about choosing an Arch Nemesis, I'll give you a couple of examples to get your creative juices flowing. My Arch Nemesis is Mardelle Atchison, the wife of the one-time Mayor of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. At the time I was choosing, "Canada" was a great punch-line to many jokes for us silly Americans, so it seemed a natural choice for first broad search. I came upon a list of dignitaries in Canada, and from there, narrowed it down to "people living in towns with funny names" and then to "people living in towns with funny names who themselves have funny names." Mardelle is great to shout aloud and shake a fist at, by the way. Conversely, my friend Bubba (because everyone in Alabama knows someone named Bubba) used the "entity" clause and named the entire state of Rhode Island as his nemesis. Clever, brilliant, hilarious. Another friend, I'm sorry to say that I forget who, named I believe the Czech Minister of Healthy Eating as theirs. This shows particular genius as it's a rather obscure office and area, with the added bonus of getting to fight back at said Nemesis by eating something UN-healthy. You can see why I like my friends so much.
So that's it. I would love to hear of your Nemeses, if and when you choose to appoint them. We will band together in mocking scorn and shake our fists at the sky.
Friday 9 March 2012
The Star Trek transporter beamed up my hobbit hole
Good afternoon all,
On this sweet, lazy, (Though the term lazy is a bit unfair seeing as the forecasted temp is 112F. It takes all my energy just to sweat.) Saturday, I thought I'd describe in lurid detail some of the pros, cons, challenges and delights of living as we do in our 1983 Viscount Aero Lite Caravan.
Firstly, this is mine and my husband's first caravan (or camper for those of you in the US.) We do not have years of experience which would make this stuff old-hat. We have been living solely in the caravan--ie, not just taking it for holiday trips--since the last week of January. Since then we've lived primarily in three different caravan parks on six separate sites. To get your mind around this, imagine that every week or so you had to decide where to live, how to cook your meals, and how to construct your front porch. And those decisions are based on whether there are trees nearby, where the toilets and showers and laundry are, and whether the plot of ground is covered with grass or a cement pad (or in one special circumstance, a 4-inch-deep grass plot covering a cement pad. This made bugs and dirt prevalent while tent pegging impossible. The purest of lose/lose situations.)
We live like non-panicked refugees. It's gypsy-like without the stealing of babies. There is intrigue, and romance of the open road, and the meeting of bizzarre and mostly-friendly characters. And if the characters are not friendly, you can move and take your house with you. There is, however, not much romance in killing ant colonies you find in your underwear cabinet (no lie; they were not in the food, just my clothes) or connecting the "waste water hose" under your house after dark. Nor is there much loveliness in the necessity of getting dressed every time you have to go to the toilet EVEN in the middle of the night. And this toilet smells like the OLD basement of New Hope church of Christ....Beware--long digression...I'm talking about the prior-to-remodeling basement with green windows and the scary stairs that no one under 25 years of age would remember. It had this particular smell. It smelled as if, taking on the values taught within its walls, the Pine-Sol and the mold became friends and lived in harmony with the glue sticks and decomposing felt boards. That's what these bathrooms smell like. On the up side, not having to ever clean this bathroom is a definite bonus. If we had our own house, we'd have to clean the bathroom no matter what it smelled like.
Laundry is also difficult for two reasons. 1) It's in a separate building from our home, and 2) There are no downy balls here. They HAVE fabric softener, but mostly front-loader machines with softener trays which do not exist at this trailer park! And since it's face-melting hot, no one uses dryers, therefore, they do not use dryer sheets except in the two weeks of winter occurring in July. Basically, it's good that I love to read because the pay-wahers and I catch up on nineteenth century literature while I wait for the rinse cycle. And I wish I could draw you a diagram of how we have to stack our pots and pans and plates in our play-skool-like cabinets. I will attempt to describe it, and this might let you in on why it could take up to three hours to cook dinner.
Our cabinets have a 6" tall by 10" wide opening, covered with a latching door. This is GREAT for when we're mobile as it stops the dishes from plummeting to the floor. This is not great for easy access. And they're bigger on the inside--which is also great for storage, bad for removal. For instance, pots A-G will all fit inside the cabinet. A,B, and C nest within one another, with pot D on top upside down to accomodate its long handle. (I know I'm a newly-wed, but don't think this is all innuendo :) ) Pots E and F fit to the right of the first pots, but must go in before A-D because they take up more room. E and F, however, cannot go in until steamer basket G is inserted into pot E. So, say I want to use pots B and E. I must first remove pot D and place it right-side-up on the dining table. Then I carefully take out the whole set of A-C, extract B, place on stove. Then I place A and C on the table inside D. I take out pots E and F, remove G, extract E. Place F back in the cabinet with G inside, followed by A inside C, covered with D. I close the cabinet. That's just two pans.
If we need to use more, more complex maneuvers are required. And heaven forbid we must use the same pot twice during preparation--as sometimes we do because we're travelling with very few duplicates. That means moving ALL preparation off of the side of the sink to on top of the stove, pulling down the dish drainer, and first pumping water then boiling it in the kettle which rests between the table and the window on top of the plastic container. Get the idea?
Believe me, it's an experience. My husband and I have had major disagreements on the placement of aluminum foil because one jumbo roll can take up 1/8 of our available storage. It would be like the arguments that some of the rest of you have about putting big-screen plasma TVs in efficiency apartments; or a singing Billy Bass in, well, anywhere within 80 miles of your home. But AS a newly-wed I can't complain too much about getting to be within three feet of my beloved at all times. If he's on the computer and I'm cooking dinner, we can still hold hands! And with him, I will get to see more of the world from this tiny portal than I ever imagined possible. It's like a hobbit hole meeting the Star Trek transporter beam. I love it. You should probably be jealous. And mail me a downy ball.
On this sweet, lazy, (Though the term lazy is a bit unfair seeing as the forecasted temp is 112F. It takes all my energy just to sweat.) Saturday, I thought I'd describe in lurid detail some of the pros, cons, challenges and delights of living as we do in our 1983 Viscount Aero Lite Caravan.
Firstly, this is mine and my husband's first caravan (or camper for those of you in the US.) We do not have years of experience which would make this stuff old-hat. We have been living solely in the caravan--ie, not just taking it for holiday trips--since the last week of January. Since then we've lived primarily in three different caravan parks on six separate sites. To get your mind around this, imagine that every week or so you had to decide where to live, how to cook your meals, and how to construct your front porch. And those decisions are based on whether there are trees nearby, where the toilets and showers and laundry are, and whether the plot of ground is covered with grass or a cement pad (or in one special circumstance, a 4-inch-deep grass plot covering a cement pad. This made bugs and dirt prevalent while tent pegging impossible. The purest of lose/lose situations.)
We live like non-panicked refugees. It's gypsy-like without the stealing of babies. There is intrigue, and romance of the open road, and the meeting of bizzarre and mostly-friendly characters. And if the characters are not friendly, you can move and take your house with you. There is, however, not much romance in killing ant colonies you find in your underwear cabinet (no lie; they were not in the food, just my clothes) or connecting the "waste water hose" under your house after dark. Nor is there much loveliness in the necessity of getting dressed every time you have to go to the toilet EVEN in the middle of the night. And this toilet smells like the OLD basement of New Hope church of Christ....Beware--long digression...I'm talking about the prior-to-remodeling basement with green windows and the scary stairs that no one under 25 years of age would remember. It had this particular smell. It smelled as if, taking on the values taught within its walls, the Pine-Sol and the mold became friends and lived in harmony with the glue sticks and decomposing felt boards. That's what these bathrooms smell like. On the up side, not having to ever clean this bathroom is a definite bonus. If we had our own house, we'd have to clean the bathroom no matter what it smelled like.
Laundry is also difficult for two reasons. 1) It's in a separate building from our home, and 2) There are no downy balls here. They HAVE fabric softener, but mostly front-loader machines with softener trays which do not exist at this trailer park! And since it's face-melting hot, no one uses dryers, therefore, they do not use dryer sheets except in the two weeks of winter occurring in July. Basically, it's good that I love to read because the pay-wahers and I catch up on nineteenth century literature while I wait for the rinse cycle. And I wish I could draw you a diagram of how we have to stack our pots and pans and plates in our play-skool-like cabinets. I will attempt to describe it, and this might let you in on why it could take up to three hours to cook dinner.
Our cabinets have a 6" tall by 10" wide opening, covered with a latching door. This is GREAT for when we're mobile as it stops the dishes from plummeting to the floor. This is not great for easy access. And they're bigger on the inside--which is also great for storage, bad for removal. For instance, pots A-G will all fit inside the cabinet. A,B, and C nest within one another, with pot D on top upside down to accomodate its long handle. (I know I'm a newly-wed, but don't think this is all innuendo :) ) Pots E and F fit to the right of the first pots, but must go in before A-D because they take up more room. E and F, however, cannot go in until steamer basket G is inserted into pot E. So, say I want to use pots B and E. I must first remove pot D and place it right-side-up on the dining table. Then I carefully take out the whole set of A-C, extract B, place on stove. Then I place A and C on the table inside D. I take out pots E and F, remove G, extract E. Place F back in the cabinet with G inside, followed by A inside C, covered with D. I close the cabinet. That's just two pans.
If we need to use more, more complex maneuvers are required. And heaven forbid we must use the same pot twice during preparation--as sometimes we do because we're travelling with very few duplicates. That means moving ALL preparation off of the side of the sink to on top of the stove, pulling down the dish drainer, and first pumping water then boiling it in the kettle which rests between the table and the window on top of the plastic container. Get the idea?
Believe me, it's an experience. My husband and I have had major disagreements on the placement of aluminum foil because one jumbo roll can take up 1/8 of our available storage. It would be like the arguments that some of the rest of you have about putting big-screen plasma TVs in efficiency apartments; or a singing Billy Bass in, well, anywhere within 80 miles of your home. But AS a newly-wed I can't complain too much about getting to be within three feet of my beloved at all times. If he's on the computer and I'm cooking dinner, we can still hold hands! And with him, I will get to see more of the world from this tiny portal than I ever imagined possible. It's like a hobbit hole meeting the Star Trek transporter beam. I love it. You should probably be jealous. And mail me a downy ball.
Tuesday 6 March 2012
Eat Them Both
What a day. At some later time I will fill you in on the lump of beaurocratic coal that was left in my proverbial stocking, but for now I will enter the first post of actual travel-survival information thus far. After all, that is ostensibly why I began this, right?
It has taken me a long time to unabashedly claim "I love McDonalds chicken nuggets." It's not that the love of them is new--no, no, a long torrid affair is ours, begun in the Cox Creek Parkway location in Florence, Alabama during multiple trips following Granny's hair appointments on Thursdays. My family was not wealthy, and Granny usually only had coupons for beef-based delicacies, so chicken nuggets and I could only rendevous occassionally. Not much, however, could make me happier on a summer afternoon than relentlessly dunking fried bits of processed chicken lips into thinly-veiled high fructose corn syrup called "Sweet n' Sour Sauce." (Little tip: If a product is marketed using an apostrophe in the name, it does not contain natural elements. This pretty much holds up in all countries.)
This love was okay to bring out in middle school as "nostalgia" for that "kids' stuff" we were all too cool to like. In high school we (or most of my friends) were paying off cars, so unless it was, like, a birthday, or we were celebrating all "Superiors" at Trumbauer, chicken nuggets and I had to stay only marginally acquainted. But it was in college that the trist became seen as sordid. I attended a private, Christian university. These kids went on mission trips to places that eat guinea pigs. Saying that I liked chicken nuggets was tantamount to backing Manifest Destiny and stepping on puppies. That was if the kids were hard-core. If they were average non-America-ashamed individuals, nuggets were simply a waste of resources that could be spent on gas money to the movies.
So, naturally, when I went to Europe after my junior year of college, I proudly strutted by each McDonalds, eschewing the familiarity in favor of pate' sandwiches with butter. I tried every anchovie-laced-anise-based-curry-dipped-Nutella-bombed unpronoucible thing I could. And my sad secret was, I missed home. And even more sadly I discovered, sometimes that loneliness could be allieviated by something familiar...familar and fried.
It has taken until the last few months touring Australia with my new husband, in our new caravan, in new places, with new food, new friends, (etc, ad nauseum) to come to the conclusion that in any new situation, what you need is not "immersion in culture" it's "balance of stimuli." For me, I enjoyed a superb Himalayan goat curry in Victoria Park, Perth, and yet nearly jumped out of my skin to get a real Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in an IGA in Toodjay. One familiar, one including actual goat bones, both amazing.
So that's it. That's my advice. Eat them both. Be curious and proud of your home town. Be fearless and reverent. Be present and past. If everyone in each town you visited thought that their hometown had nothing to offer, then Pisa would just be a bad corporate real estate investment.
For those of you Stateside, eat a nugget for me; for those of you in Oz, if you get the goat curry, add the lamb momos. They're delish.
It has taken me a long time to unabashedly claim "I love McDonalds chicken nuggets." It's not that the love of them is new--no, no, a long torrid affair is ours, begun in the Cox Creek Parkway location in Florence, Alabama during multiple trips following Granny's hair appointments on Thursdays. My family was not wealthy, and Granny usually only had coupons for beef-based delicacies, so chicken nuggets and I could only rendevous occassionally. Not much, however, could make me happier on a summer afternoon than relentlessly dunking fried bits of processed chicken lips into thinly-veiled high fructose corn syrup called "Sweet n' Sour Sauce." (Little tip: If a product is marketed using an apostrophe in the name, it does not contain natural elements. This pretty much holds up in all countries.)
This love was okay to bring out in middle school as "nostalgia" for that "kids' stuff" we were all too cool to like. In high school we (or most of my friends) were paying off cars, so unless it was, like, a birthday, or we were celebrating all "Superiors" at Trumbauer, chicken nuggets and I had to stay only marginally acquainted. But it was in college that the trist became seen as sordid. I attended a private, Christian university. These kids went on mission trips to places that eat guinea pigs. Saying that I liked chicken nuggets was tantamount to backing Manifest Destiny and stepping on puppies. That was if the kids were hard-core. If they were average non-America-ashamed individuals, nuggets were simply a waste of resources that could be spent on gas money to the movies.
So, naturally, when I went to Europe after my junior year of college, I proudly strutted by each McDonalds, eschewing the familiarity in favor of pate' sandwiches with butter. I tried every anchovie-laced-anise-based-curry-dipped-Nutella-bombed unpronoucible thing I could. And my sad secret was, I missed home. And even more sadly I discovered, sometimes that loneliness could be allieviated by something familiar...familar and fried.
It has taken until the last few months touring Australia with my new husband, in our new caravan, in new places, with new food, new friends, (etc, ad nauseum) to come to the conclusion that in any new situation, what you need is not "immersion in culture" it's "balance of stimuli." For me, I enjoyed a superb Himalayan goat curry in Victoria Park, Perth, and yet nearly jumped out of my skin to get a real Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in an IGA in Toodjay. One familiar, one including actual goat bones, both amazing.
So that's it. That's my advice. Eat them both. Be curious and proud of your home town. Be fearless and reverent. Be present and past. If everyone in each town you visited thought that their hometown had nothing to offer, then Pisa would just be a bad corporate real estate investment.
For those of you Stateside, eat a nugget for me; for those of you in Oz, if you get the goat curry, add the lamb momos. They're delish.
Saturday 3 March 2012
Let me tell you why.
Let me tell you why I call myself Blunderwoman. On the surface, it's a fun title, detailing that I do, in all truth, have adventures. And Dr. Menzer came up with the name all chocked full of paranomasia. But that's not the whole reason.
It's not because I make simple mistakes; that would be too common. Anyone can do that. I make precise mistakes. MY good intentions, even my BEST intentions are the polar opposite of what "should" be done at any certain, crucial moment.
My first memory of this negative superpower is from the second grade at Mars Hill Bible School. I was receiving some kind of help on an assignment or project--I don't even remember what--from Sandy C. I liked him. He had a swirly hairdo that started from a cowlick on the back of his head and moved seamlessly forward and around his ears--and this was before Beiber was in utero. AND his mom brought summer sausage for his birthday party that year on Kermit-The-Frog plates! To a girl who loves her muppets and would invite any part of a pig to the table, this guy was gold.
So what went wrong? My superpower, that's what.
"Thanks," said I.
"What would you do without me?" said Sandy, half jokingly.
"Rejoice!" said I.
That's right. THAT was my response. I had just given Sandy the summer sausage bringer the seven-year-old-church-of-Christ equivalent to "Go screw yourself." And in his now-watery brown eyes I saw the reflection I would learn to fear to this day.
Oddly, I think of this experience so vividly and so frequently that it's unusual I hadn't attributed it to my superpower before now. Sadly, it's not a lone occurence.
Another vivid example happened in the high school years--okay MANY happened in the high school years, but this one demonstrates the precision of my craft. My brother and I were in Big Lots (or as hoarders call it "Mecca.") This was our fourth attempt to find gardening gloves to suit my child-sized hands. They just don't make gloves in XXS that can handle a weed-eater. We were shuffling from aisle to aisle, finally pinpointing a cardboard taco-shaped-hanger-thingy for small, womens' gardening gloves. It contained ONE glove. One. In my frustration, and not taking time to scope out my surroundings I exclaimed "Well, that would be GREAT if I just had ONE HAND!"
My brother did not laugh as I had expected. I would have noticed the silence more if he hadn't been dragging me fervently around the corner to the shampoo aisle. Out of breath and quite confused, I asked what the problem was. He responded, white of face, and with as much disgrace as I have seen my brother wear, "There was a guy with one arm standing right beside you!"
A one-armed man. In Big Lots. In Florence, AL. At THAT moment when I found a single gardening glove. It's that powerful a superpower.
So, for those of you that know me, or those of you who happen to read from afar, know that you are not safe. When you've just gained four pounds on a botched attempt at the Atkins diet, I will ask about your cholesterol levels in a concerned way that will sound condescending. If you've just broken up with your significant other, I will ask you if you hear wedding bells. If your husband has just moved out, I will ask you if I should save a seat for him in Bible class (It really happened. Recently.)
And having acknowleged that you are all possible victims, I do want to empower you by letting you know your enemy more fully, and the weapons she carries. So far I've come up with "The Helmet of Awkwardness" which makes everyone around let go of that tiny shart they've been holding in since lunch. There's also the "Glove of Umbrage" which turns a well-meaning Dr. Phil-esque touch on the arm into a baggage-inducing wave of condescention. And then the devilish duo: "Fun-House Mirror of Perception" and "Don't Push This Button! Button" Of course upon seeing your pain in the Fun-House Mirror of Perception, I see things backwards and I push the button. With alarming accuracy.
This, like most blogs, is enough shame for one day. Endeavor to be otherwise.
It's not because I make simple mistakes; that would be too common. Anyone can do that. I make precise mistakes. MY good intentions, even my BEST intentions are the polar opposite of what "should" be done at any certain, crucial moment.
My first memory of this negative superpower is from the second grade at Mars Hill Bible School. I was receiving some kind of help on an assignment or project--I don't even remember what--from Sandy C. I liked him. He had a swirly hairdo that started from a cowlick on the back of his head and moved seamlessly forward and around his ears--and this was before Beiber was in utero. AND his mom brought summer sausage for his birthday party that year on Kermit-The-Frog plates! To a girl who loves her muppets and would invite any part of a pig to the table, this guy was gold.
So what went wrong? My superpower, that's what.
"Thanks," said I.
"What would you do without me?" said Sandy, half jokingly.
"Rejoice!" said I.
That's right. THAT was my response. I had just given Sandy the summer sausage bringer the seven-year-old-church-of-Christ equivalent to "Go screw yourself." And in his now-watery brown eyes I saw the reflection I would learn to fear to this day.
Oddly, I think of this experience so vividly and so frequently that it's unusual I hadn't attributed it to my superpower before now. Sadly, it's not a lone occurence.
Another vivid example happened in the high school years--okay MANY happened in the high school years, but this one demonstrates the precision of my craft. My brother and I were in Big Lots (or as hoarders call it "Mecca.") This was our fourth attempt to find gardening gloves to suit my child-sized hands. They just don't make gloves in XXS that can handle a weed-eater. We were shuffling from aisle to aisle, finally pinpointing a cardboard taco-shaped-hanger-thingy for small, womens' gardening gloves. It contained ONE glove. One. In my frustration, and not taking time to scope out my surroundings I exclaimed "Well, that would be GREAT if I just had ONE HAND!"
My brother did not laugh as I had expected. I would have noticed the silence more if he hadn't been dragging me fervently around the corner to the shampoo aisle. Out of breath and quite confused, I asked what the problem was. He responded, white of face, and with as much disgrace as I have seen my brother wear, "There was a guy with one arm standing right beside you!"
A one-armed man. In Big Lots. In Florence, AL. At THAT moment when I found a single gardening glove. It's that powerful a superpower.
So, for those of you that know me, or those of you who happen to read from afar, know that you are not safe. When you've just gained four pounds on a botched attempt at the Atkins diet, I will ask about your cholesterol levels in a concerned way that will sound condescending. If you've just broken up with your significant other, I will ask you if you hear wedding bells. If your husband has just moved out, I will ask you if I should save a seat for him in Bible class (It really happened. Recently.)
And having acknowleged that you are all possible victims, I do want to empower you by letting you know your enemy more fully, and the weapons she carries. So far I've come up with "The Helmet of Awkwardness" which makes everyone around let go of that tiny shart they've been holding in since lunch. There's also the "Glove of Umbrage" which turns a well-meaning Dr. Phil-esque touch on the arm into a baggage-inducing wave of condescention. And then the devilish duo: "Fun-House Mirror of Perception" and "Don't Push This Button! Button" Of course upon seeing your pain in the Fun-House Mirror of Perception, I see things backwards and I push the button. With alarming accuracy.
This, like most blogs, is enough shame for one day. Endeavor to be otherwise.
Friday 2 March 2012
Context
Good evening,
This is my first attempt at free-form into-the-ether internet communication, so bear with me. I hope to strike somewhere between the script for Steel Magnolias and Bill Bryson (with a uterus.) I have learned, however, that an audience must care about a speaker before they care about a speech, so if you've just stumbled accross this I'll give you some background.
I was born in Indianapolis but raised in Alabama as the middle child of a fiercely loving, yet somewhat repressed family. At 18 I left home for college in nearby Tennessee and have not stopped travelling since. And since travel and the things I learn while doing it will be the main topic of my writing, I'll detail some of it--I guess it's all fair game.
Here are some of the towns I've hung my hat since 1996:
Henderson, TN
Banner Elk, NC
Lima, Peru
Cumbernauld, Scotland
Houston, TX
Ferndale, NY
Verviers, Belgium
Staunton, VA
Lyndhurst, VA
Florence, AL
Huntsville, AL
And even more fantastically, I have recently married an English-born Australian man, and together we're scouring Western Australia for entertainment and sustenance from our Viscount Aero Lite caravan. That adds to the list Kwinana, Rockingham, Gwellup, Safey Bay, Jurien Bay and Dawsville in Western Australia.
Other things you might like to know before continuing reading: I'm an evangelical Christian and will write about it; I have two masters degrees in Shakespeare and no job (TRY to sound suprised); I have 32 first cousins on one side of my family and we're not even Catholic; I'm left handed; I'm a terrible speller; sometimes things that I think are profound are obvious; I'm new at a lot of things at the moment, which makes me uncomfortable and I will therefore bore you with the details of my failures and triumphs. Be forewarned.
This is my first attempt at free-form into-the-ether internet communication, so bear with me. I hope to strike somewhere between the script for Steel Magnolias and Bill Bryson (with a uterus.) I have learned, however, that an audience must care about a speaker before they care about a speech, so if you've just stumbled accross this I'll give you some background.
I was born in Indianapolis but raised in Alabama as the middle child of a fiercely loving, yet somewhat repressed family. At 18 I left home for college in nearby Tennessee and have not stopped travelling since. And since travel and the things I learn while doing it will be the main topic of my writing, I'll detail some of it--I guess it's all fair game.
Here are some of the towns I've hung my hat since 1996:
Henderson, TN
Banner Elk, NC
Lima, Peru
Cumbernauld, Scotland
Houston, TX
Ferndale, NY
Verviers, Belgium
Staunton, VA
Lyndhurst, VA
Florence, AL
Huntsville, AL
And even more fantastically, I have recently married an English-born Australian man, and together we're scouring Western Australia for entertainment and sustenance from our Viscount Aero Lite caravan. That adds to the list Kwinana, Rockingham, Gwellup, Safey Bay, Jurien Bay and Dawsville in Western Australia.
Other things you might like to know before continuing reading: I'm an evangelical Christian and will write about it; I have two masters degrees in Shakespeare and no job (TRY to sound suprised); I have 32 first cousins on one side of my family and we're not even Catholic; I'm left handed; I'm a terrible speller; sometimes things that I think are profound are obvious; I'm new at a lot of things at the moment, which makes me uncomfortable and I will therefore bore you with the details of my failures and triumphs. Be forewarned.
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